After hearing William Blyth’s testimony, officials in Philadelphia struggled to maintain order in an atmosphere that was quickly being thrown into political chaos.
Governor John Penn issued a proclamation in response to Stump’s brutal massacre and condemned Stump’s actions as unprovoked and against the law. It was not just a matter of law and order, Penn observed, but a test of the “public Faith of Treaties with the several Indian Nations.”
This was Penn’s central point; he emphasized that this crime threatened good relations between European settlers and Native Americans. The Governor clearly identified Stump as the enemy in this situation, while the Indians were “friendly and quiet” inhabitants of the Pennsylvania frontier. Penn ended the proclamation with his decree for all law enforcement officials to search for Stump so that he could be incarcerated and brought to justice for his heinous crime. He also invited average people to become involved by offering a reward of two hundred pounds to anyone who managed “to apprehend and secure him in one of the public Gaols [jails] of this Province.”